In June 2001, Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act went into effect requiring all electronic information technology (EIT) equipment purchased by the US Federal Government to comply with a series of specifications intended to improve the operability for people with disabilities. The law states, in part, that if no fully compliant product is available, the government must purchase the product which is the most compliant with the law's specifications. The government does not describe or suggest any process by which compliance may be measured.
What is needed in the art is a method which generates a set of metrics which describe criteria for meeting each of section 508's specifications and for determining a rating depending on whether a particular product meets, fails to meet, or does not apply as against each of said section's specifications.